


Frogged Wool (The Problem with Big Hands)

by CollingwoodGirl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, Knitting, Zebras, misperceptions, safe words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7983766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollingwoodGirl/pseuds/CollingwoodGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack finds himself unexpectedly wound up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frogged Wool (The Problem with Big Hands)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Whilenotwriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whilenotwriting/gifts).



> For anyone who loves knitting, or smut, or secret references to zebras (and really... who doesn't?). But especially for Whilenotwriting who loves all of these things and whose contribution to a lot of the fiction posted here in the MFMM fandom cannot be overstated. While she has not been writing, she has been a fic cheerleader, plot-puzzler, rabble-rouser, voice-of-reason, co-conspirator, and goddess-of-beta all wrapped up in one. Not to mention an utter delight and a darling friend. Wishing you a wonderful birthday full of good fic, good knitwear, and good Phrack. XOXO, CG

“Inspector Robinson! Oh! Thank goodness you’re here!”

The anguish in Mrs. Collins’ voice propelled his feet toward the parlour before he could even consider shutting the front door.

She sat in the chair closest to the fire, looking down into her lap. There was no small amount of worry in her eyes at what she found there.

 _No!_ Jack’s heart cried. He never wanted to go through this pain again. Never again wanted to see another woman he cared for go through it—as if he, himself, possessed the power to keep the nightmare from manifesting. Phryne had only just hinted that his Senior Constable was due to be the proud poppa to a second Collins child.

“Jack, please! Can you help?”

 _She called me Jack_ , he thought with horror. Mrs. Collins never called him Jack. The situation must be dire indeed. He rounded the corner of the chaise and shut his eyes tightly, preparing himself for the worst.

When he finally followed her gaze, Jack’s eyebrows threatened his hairline with their proximity. Clutching his chest, he huffed a loud breath before steadying himself against the mantelpiece.

“You’re… You’re alright, then, Dot?”

“No!” she wailed, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Can’t you see the mess I’ve made?”

He looked down into the tangled kinks of pale yellow wool and had to admit that it reminded more of the pasta at Strano’s than anything meant to be worn. Despite his darker urges, he wisely kept this opinion to himself. It was not, after all, Mrs. Collins’ fault that her condition rendered her so emotional—even if she did nearly give him a coronary.

“I’m sure it can be salvaged,” he said with a downturned smile, relief quickly replacing his indignation. He took up the chair to her opposite and laid a protective hand upon her knee.

“I tried,” she sniffed. “But I dropped so many stitches, I had to frog the whole thing.”

“Frog?” Jack passed her the snowy white handkerchief on which she had embroidered his initials for Christmas.

“Rip it,” Dorothy explained, a shaky laugh bubbling up her throat as she dabbed her nose. “Rip the stitches. Say it enough times as you’re doing it and you sound like a frog.”

“And what now that you’ve finished your wildlife interpretation?” he teased, his eyes crinkling with amusement.

“Well, I was hoping… I mean, I would ask Mister Butler but he’s at the market… And your hands are so—”

At least she gave him the satisfaction of blushing when she asked.

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Warily approaching 221B The Esplanade's gaping door, Phryne Fisher reminded herself that she really must hold another house meeting on proper safety measures. This was getting ridiculous. Crouching down below the window line, she took the long way round and let herself in through the kitchen. She edged silently through the suite of downstairs rooms, clearing each as she went with her pistol gripped in both hands and trained in front of her.

Phryne spotted the familiar brown fedora upended on the tilework, when she reached the foyer, and steeled herself. Charging into the parlour like the very freight train he had once accused her of being, she found the Inspector hunched over himself in a chair, his hands bound in front of him. Her eyes darted frantically through the room, finding his coats abandoned haphazardly to the floor but the interloper nowhere in sight.

"Jack!" she whispered, dodging the sharp edges of furniture to get to him.

"Phryne," he said, far too calmly for her liking, "Put the gun down."

"Where are they?"

"Phryne," he began again. "It's not what you think. Calm down. Zebra. Put the gun down! Zebra!"

It was the Fisher household’s code word for safety. A literal safe word. Dorothy had decided on the necessity after a rather harrowing experience roasting chestnuts in the fireplace last winter had called Bert, Cec, and Mr. B. to arms. The first thing Dot had noticed—once repeated assurances had been given, muzzles lowered, and wits regained—was the Margaret Preston painting hanging in the niche. _Black and white, everything's alright_ , she had declared. _Zebra. That's easy enough to remember._ The code had stuck.

"Zebra?" Phryne repeated, confusion colouring her voice.

She found herself—despite his claims otherwise—looking for bloodstains on his crisp white shirtsleeves, frays where a blade might have parted his dark waistcoat. There were none to be found. No telltale goose-eggs to offset his immaculately oiled waves from their usual pattern. Jack appeared unnervingly fine, if a little annoyed. "But you're bound!"

"Only by the fate of a jumper that didn't meet Mrs. Collins' standards," Jack groaned. Stiffness had settled into his lower back from having sat immobilized for so long. He raised his hands to show her the skein of frogged wool that had been wrapped meticulously around his hands like a neverending game of cat’s cradle.

Phryne poured herself a drink, which she charitably held to Jack’s lips—but only after she had taken a long, settling sip.

He told her the whole sordid tale... About what he thought he had seen and what had actually been... About Dot’s unusually fragile disposition… About how binding the wool taut would apparently help her salvage it and that there had been no one else to hand, as it were… About how, having sat in the chair for nearly half an hour, being regaled with tales of her toddler’s hijinks, he thought he might have made a tactical error… And about how said hijinks led to Phryne finding him alone in their parlour with the front door hanging open, two quid worth of yarn wrapped around his hands, and the fear of a pregnant Dorothy Collins holding him steadfastly in place.

She listened to his honeyed voice, imagining the scene as he spun the tale, and considered why the idea of Jack Robinson being subdued so thoroughly—and by her companion no less!—did not bother her near as much as it should have done.

“My poor Inspector,” she crooned, moving behind him to rub his shoulders. At the first squeeze of tense muscle, he expelled an appreciative sigh that found its way beneath her skin and into her blood.

Steadily, she moved lower, working her hands in and around his scapulae in circles (a resounding groan that elicited a tiny shudder down her spine), then lower still, her fingertips gently prodding the muscles that sat atop his hipbones (a rumbling, “Phryne” that synthesized her lingering adrenaline into pure lust).

“You know, I’ve never really given the domestic arts a fair shake,” she mused, loving the way the delicate pale wool looked against his rugged tanned hands. “But I’m beginning to see the appeal.”

“Hmph!” Jack chuckled in derision. “Phryne Fisher knitting me a pair of socks! That will be the day.”

She laughed with her lips closed, a sound Jack found to be as dangerous as it was alluring. Phryne leaned over the back of the chair and traced the whorls of his ear with the tip of her tongue (a huff of strangled breath as he bolted upright as if electrified).

“You underestimate me, Jack.” She inched her hands slowly over his hips until they were snuggled inside his trouser pockets. “I think I could be inspired to knit a sock. A sock especially-fitted to keep a very special appendage warm on all those chilly stakeouts.”

“Miss Fisher—” he warned, trying to employ the sternest voice he could as she scraped along his thigh and the length of his rapidly hardening member from within the silk-lined confines. He cleared his throat roughly to knock the octave down to a more believable level.

“Yes, Inspector?” Her voice was innocent but she had not eased her teasing for a second.

A loud wail sounded from an upstairs room where the boisterous terror, Frances Emma Collins, was making her great displeasure at “quiet time” known.

“Living up to her namesake I see,” Phryne tutted, the pride in her voice unmistakable.

“Mrs. Collins will be back at any moment,” he bluffed. He was far too familiar with the regularity and length of the child’s tantrums to expect miracles—no matter how devout her mother may be.

“Maybe she will...” Phryne sang, rounding the chair and trailing her fingertips down the length of his arm from shoulder to wrist.

She stopped to drink in the picture a squirming, flustered Jack Robinson made as proper battled prurient—his darkened eyes begging her, but for what he would not say.

“...And maybe she won’t.”

Phryne knew he would not put the knitting down. He would have seen it as a dereliction of duty, a violation of the trust Dot had placed in him in a moment of weakness. _Noble to a fault,_ she thought with a wicked little grin, lowering herself to kneel between his legs. And she really did believe in rewarding noble acts—preferably with sordid ones.

Another cry sounded from over their heads and then, soon after, the first hushed chapter of a very, very long bedtime story.

“But I believe she's got her hands full for a while…” Phryne's tongue darted out to wet her lips as she unbuttoned the fly of his trousers (a whimper as he raised his arms like a drawbridge to let her pass beneath). She cherished the sensations of his forearms brushing the sides of her throat, the net of frogged wool—still buoyed up by his hands—pillowing the back of her head, as she nuzzled into his lap. “Rather like you, Jack.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure the term "frogging" as it applies to the act of tearing apart one's knitting is an anachronism for 1933ish Melbourne. But I don't care... I have about as much interest in knitting as Phryne does. That is to say, I'm interested as long as it's wrapped around Jack's hands. Which dovetails nicely to the title of this fic… shamelessly stolen from the man himself in his BtS video to be found and watched (and rewatched, and rewatched) exclusively on his website, nathanpagetheactor.com  
> [Behind the Scenes with Nathan Page (The 39 Steps)](https://nathanpagetheactor.com/nathan-page-in-the-media/exclusives/)


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